Rumour: Nvidia To Stop Production Of Certain Maxwell GPUs

Nvidia is allegedly planning to halt the production of certain Maxwell GPUs. According to HWBattle, affected Nvidia graphics cards could be the GM204-based GTX 980 and GTX 970; and the GM200-based GTX 980 Ti. The rumoured halt in production of Maxwell GPUs may not be surprising at all considering the fact that Nvidia’s upcoming Pascal-based graphics cards are about to debut in coming months.

A halt in production of certain Maxwell GPUs will allow Nvidia’s AIC (add-in card) partners to clear out their remaining Maxwell-based cards to make way for Pascal. Interestingly, this rumour of the discontinuation of Nvidia’s GTX 970, 980 and 980 Ti graphics cards seems to fit well with the three Pascal GP104-based graphics cards that Nvidia is rumoured to be releasing sometime this year.

Nvidia’s Maxwell GPU microarchitecture was first introduced back in 2014 alongside the GTX 750. Over the years, Nvidia has released two generations of Maxwell GPUs: the GM100 series and GM200 series. Unlike AMD who used to name its GPUs after real world islands, Nvidia names its GPUs after famous scientists and inventors. Maxwell GPUs, for example, was named after James Clerk Maxwell, founder of the theory of electromagnetic radiation.

That aside, one has to keep in mind that Nvidia has not released an official statement regarding this matter. Until then, this will remain to be a rumour that – as always – should be taken with a grain of salt.